The 'New' World Of Darkness Makes Way For Chronicles Of Darkness And The World Of Darkness

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In case you missed it, White Wolf Publishing has been under new ownership for the last couple of months, since Swedish video game publisher Paradox Interactive announced buying the rights to White Wolf Publishing and the World of Darkness and Exalted properties from CCP Games in October. This announcement left fans, and developers up in the air over what the next step would be. Yesterday, at the Tenebrae Noctis White Wolf fan convention in Cologne, more information was announced. Probably one of the bigger announcements being about what was the status, going forward, of the various Worlds of Darkness currently being published.

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White Wolf Publishing will be doing the, new, fourth editions of the World of Darkness games, starting with

A press release on the Onyx Path Publishing website said this:

Onyx Path Publishing and White Wolf Publishing are proud to announce that Chronicles of Darkness is now the overall brand name for the series of game lines previously called the New World of Darkness. These game lines include Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition, Werewolf: the Forsaken 2nd Edition, Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition, Geist: the Sin-Eaters, Mummy: the Curse, Demon: the Descent, and Beast: the Primordial, as well as any upcoming projects and game lines.

And the press release went into some of the reasoning for the change here:

Because, let’s face it, the cWoD/nWoD thing has always been awkward once you tried to explain why there were two of them but the second WoD wasn’t another edition but a whole ‘nother reimagining. Another WoD that enables equally awesome stories to be told but which has different rules and themes and overall tone. Nothing confusing there!

Onyx Path Publishing will also continue with the 20th Anniversary editions of World of Darkness games and Exalted.

Where the “new” World of Darkness will now be called The Chronicles of Darkness, the lines being developed in-house by White Wolf Publishing will just be, simply, The World of Darkness. No longer will there be a “new,” “classic,” or any other sort of qualifier to the title. Where White Wolf Publishing’s World of Darkness games will line up with the upcoming AAA video game, and other media adaptations, the Chronicles of Darkness will be continue to be “an amazing toolkit to create the WOD that you as the Storyteller want,” according to Martin Elricsson, the Lead Storyteller at White Wolf Publishing.

It looks that the World of Darkness setting material will feature a shift from America to Europe, which makes sense coming from a publisher based in Europe. This might actually make the buy-in to the setting easier for many American gamers, since it will make the setting, for them, into more of a “fantasy world” and less of the “world outside of your windows.”

In addition to developing the World of Darkness game in-house, it also looks that White Wolf Publishing will also be developing new LARP rules in-house as well. From social media talk on Twitter and Facebook, it looks as though the new rules will take a nod from the traditions of Nordic LARPs, which will be interesting to see. I admit that I have never been one for LARPing, so my knowledge of that area is a hole that I will have to fill up in order to talk about it intelligently in the future.

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In the Onyx Path Publishing press release for the Chronicles of Darkness announcement, they also talked about practical, licensing-related reasons for why the name shifts make sense:

And on a licensing level, garnering interest outside our hobby has been a nightmare. One kind of Hollywood type has a 3.5 second attention span, by and large, and you have to hook them right away, while another type Googles everything as you’re talking. The first will be gone before you can explain the N in new WoD, and the second will find page after page of info that sounds similar but is different and is all coming up under World of Darkness.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

For me, the big question is whether or not the new Paradox/White Wolf oWoD (now just WoD) materials will fit in with the many, many oWoD books I own. If they really are starting up oWoD stuff again in a serious way, that's great, and I might be interested in buying some of it, as long as there are print edition options (I don't like PDFs).

If, however, they are essentially going to re-rewrite things so that we end up with (essentially) a third version of the WoD games, screw that.

 

[Jiggawatts]

I like this change. As someone who only has a surface level knowledge of Vampire and Co, I always felt oWoD and nWoD was needlessly confusing. I also feel like this was the best compromise given the situation, White Wolf gets the WoD to licence and develop and metaplot, whereas with CofD Onyx Path gets their own sandbox to play in undisturbed without needing to worry about accommodating changes and story elements introduced by WW. Sounds like a win/win actually.

 

[Big J Money]

Sounds like the best thing to do, is forget the terms "old" and "new" WoD and just go with: 20th, WoD and CoD.

It will still be confusing to newbies. Of WoD and CoD; how to choose? Or even, of 20th and WoD; how to choose? I guess 20th is a no-brainer for those who own tons of old sourcebooks.

I'm sure when 4th comes out, someone will do a comparison of CoD VtR, WoD VtM and 20th VtM...

 

[pickin_grinnin]

If they went back to the oWoD basics (original magic system, vampire clan descriptions, etc.) and simply upgraded the rest of the mechanics, I might consider moving to a newer system. The changes to the Mage magic system and the changes in the vampire clans were the main things that made me reject the nWoD. The crappy manga-inspired art in some of the books didn't help things any. In some ways, the nWoD feels less "adult" to me than the oWoD.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

About background I don't mind the canon and I change it like I want, but I don't spend my money to be insulted about monster-hunters who are religious fanatics. They can save all those hypocrite sermons about fanatism and intolerence, because here in Spain we are to used to hear it, and they can't teach too much to somebody who know a lot of things about anti-Christian fanatism.

I miss a lot of things from the old WoD, but I like some ideas from the new CoD. I can mix them or even use a fantasy setting, like a gothic-punk version of Exalted rpg or Westeros (Games of Thrones), or a mash-up of the demiplane of Dread from D&D Ravenloft (with some ideas from Kult rpg) because is more confortable to use fictional cults to create stories about religious conflicts.

I loved a lot of things from WoD, but it was like a "Jurassick Park" for monster from "Hammer Films". Too many supernatural creatures to be hidden. In my campagins the supernatural creatures are open secrets, and that is the reason almost nobody is atheist.

Other reason to use a fictional world for gothic-punk campaigns is because the natural laws may be differnt and then allowing "pokemon-like creatures", no-sentient beings with special powers but without links toward ocultism. In the real world believer people don't like "real" magic because it is like calling to ask a pizza but you don't know the pizza deliveryman is really a criminal. You can remember that controversy about Harry Potter and "Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons".

* Has ended the boom of the supernatural romance? What a pity, because WoD is perfect for a new "Twighlight saga".

* The background of "Wraith: the Olvidion" is too sad, but I like to use wraiths like allies of other creatures.

* I would rather the kindred from "Changeling: the dreaming" but the background of "Changeling: the lost".

* Once I created a Garou vs Uratha campaing, where Weaver, Wyrd and Wyrns are powerful spirit kings, but not "deities", Weaver can change to adapt because "order is dinamic, not frozen", Wyrd notice discipline is necesary to build and create and Wyrn is more a conquerer (with biopunk gifts for their followers) than a corrupting power.

* In my setting Technocracy is powerful, but it can't controll goverments, but local secret agencies by goverments controll "regional" technocracies.. with techno-mages rules, but most of members are human hunters like the conspirancy "the Task force: Walkyrie" from "Hunter: the Vigil".

* I would change some things from "Demon: the Fall" and I would use both demons, from "Demons: the Fall" and "Demons: the Descent" where the machine-god would be leader of Interaction X faction (maybe the weaver?).

* In my setting the Prometheans can be created by another supernatural creatures, even by vampires!!

* I love "Mage: the sorcerer crusade" but I don't like the version about Spanish empire, I feel like an North-American reading Russia Today news. I accept self-criticism about past, but not to be disgusted with ourself. We weren't worse than the rest of countries.

* Did you like the system for magic from "Dark Age: Mage"?

* In my own version of Dark Age: Fae the Christian crusaders protect people againts the faes, antagonists who want to "punish to the ones who forgot old pacts" (pacts or old blackmail?).